Apr. 18, 2013

Phil Reisman, photographed at WVOX radio station in New Rochelle April 26, 2012. ( Seth Harrison / The Journal News )

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I have a suggestion for the mayor and Democratic majority on the New Rochelle City Council. I am not naïve. They will reject it.

I am almost certain that this is a dead letter. But here it goes: They should draft a resolution and pass it unanimously.

In the resolution, they should reverse their controversial decision to take down the so-called Gadsden flag at the city-owned armory property on Main Street. They should ceremoniously restore the flag in the spirit of civic unity and in defiance of the practitioners of terror who believe they can destroy our freedom by spreading the twin cancers of fear and paranoia.

The historic flag depicts a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field and includes the words, “Don’t tread on me.” That is the perfect message to the terminal crazies who, whatever their motivation, think they can crush our morale with explosives stuffed in otherwise harmless workaday objects like shoes, cellphones, laptops and cheap kitchen appliances normally used to cook a rump roast.

A group of New Rochelle veterans originally hoisted the flag at the armory on March 21. Within a few days, it drew fire.

The principal objection from some quarters was that, despite the banner’s Revolutionary War heritage, the flag had been adopted by the modern Tea Party movement — and therefore was inappropriately displayed on municipal property that is supposed to be politically neutral.

The facts as to what exactly happened next are in dispute. Mayor Noam Bramson insisted that the veterans were asked to take down the flag. Peter Parente, the president of United Veterans Memorial and Patriotic Association, said that no such request was made and that the flag was “confiscated” by the city.

In any event, the flag was removed by the Department of Public Works and presumably is being stored somewhere at City Hall.

A bitter battle of words has ensued.

Indeed, there is a lot of bad blood between Bramson and the Gadsden flag bearers, not the least among them Parente, a salty-tongued Marine who does not mince words in expressing his dislike for the mayor. Much of this stems from a longstanding dispute over the redevelopment of the vacant armory property and a genuine feeling on the part of many veterans that their wishes haven’t been given a fair hearing, if any hearing at all.

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The feud’s origins may go all the way back to more than a decade ago when Bramson defeated longtime Assembly incumbent Ron Tocci in a Democratic primary. Tocci ran as a Republican in the general election and won. Now retired from elective politics, Tocci, a former Army paratrooper, is a major player in the veterans’ efforts to turn the armory into a multi-faceted community center.

Lately, the dispute between the mayor and his detractors has gotten personal to the point where Bramson’s opposition to an ROTC program at Harvard University when he was a student leader some 20 years ago has been seized as further proof that he is and always will be anti-military.

“We need this controversy like a hole in the head,” Bramson told me over the phone. “Nobody wants to be spending time on this. Of course, all of us honor and respect the service of our veterans, and we’re all patriots who love America. But I’m not sure we had much of a choice.”

He insisted that he would have had to oppose any flag on city property that might be associated with a political philosophy — regardless of whether it comes from the right or the left.

By the same token, he said he couldn’t guess what the veterans had in mind when they picked the Gadsden flag.

“I can’t get inside their heads,” he said.

Parente told me the flag “absolutely” had nothing to do with the Tea Party. He pointed out that it was originally designed for the continental Marines and as such was the perfect banner for the naval armory.

So this brings me back to the resolution.

The mayor and his council allies should rise above this. If it is such an unwelcome distraction to the real business of government, then they can defuse it by resolving that the Gadsden flag carries a new and better meaning that stands far above small-town petty politics. They should adopt the flag as a symbol of solidarity against the tyranny of domestic and international terrorism.

Who can object to that?

If New York Yankees fans can pay tribute to the city of Boston by singing “Sweet Caroline,” the theme song of their arch rivals, the Red Sox, then anything should be possible in this world of unrelenting conflict.